[pianotech] Exploding Piano

[James Sasso]

Hi Everyone;
A few weeks ago I had a service call to tune a Baldwin Acrosonic console for
New Year's Eve festivities at a new customer's home. Before starting tuning
I noticed a modest amount of "gained motion" i.e. the hammers in the middle
third of the piano were slightly lifted off the rail, with the biggest
offenders at about 1/8th inch from resting positon in the middle of the
piano. "Strange" I thought, usually this is the area where we find lost
motion. I tuned the piano and found that the dampers were in need of
adjustments in the same area so I tweaked a few but found they were all over
the place with regard to regulation. I quickly adjusted the gained motion
and finished tuning the piano. I had a laser I purchased from a recent PTG
seminar with me so I decided to pull the action to check out the dampers.
The laser indicated that they were all over the place when compared to a
straight line. About 2 minutes into checking the dampers I hear a loud bang
and crack; then 5 seconds later another bang and crack. Seems that the
action, which although screwed directly into the plate (no action bolts) yet
came out with the greatest difficulty, was the only thing holding the pin
block in place to the frame.

Now before my eyes, was a rip straight across the felt that covers the top
of the pinblock and a half inch gap between the pinblock and frame. In
addition the "explosion" had been so quick that two cracks had formed in the
soundboard. I couldn't get the action back into the piano at first but
luckily it had tuning pins that served as the action base so I had to adjust
those to be able to get the machine screws to align. The laser indicated the
action had been warped and twisted from all the pressure upon it. The tuning
had dropped a full step (i.e. 2 half-steps) and the customer had tuned her
harp to A440. The piano was unplayable with some hammers actually touching
the strings. I called in the customer and we assessed the situation. The
guests would be coming in about 3 hours so there was no time to go back to
get the epoxy, clamps, drills and myriad other items needed for the repair,
let alone retune and reregulate the piano.

I've gone through the past 12 years of the archives on this website and
searched all pinblock issues and found much information and advice on how to
repair this type of situation. My records indicated I'd done 6 complete
pinblock repairs on my player pianos in my shop so this post isn't a rehash
of all that. It's just that this "explosion" never happened on my watch. The
repairs I'd done were either preemptive on player pianos that were beginning
to separate or on players that had already separated but on which I'd deemed
the value as worth the repairs. So I was shocked and embarrassed that early
detection of this separation had eluded me. I'd found the same situation in
a Baldwin studio upright literally 2 houses down from where the
aforementioned incident occurred and the customers were thrilled with
trading that piano in for a beautiful Yamaha upright. However, that Baldwin
had no felt covering the top of the pinblock so it was easier to see the
beginning of the rift. Two days after the incident I had to tune another
Baldwin Acrosonic in the area, a spinet a half-step flat. A strip of felt
also covered this pinblock.This time I took no chances--I pulled up the felt
and sure enough--the pinblock was separating from the frame in the middle of
the piano.

So here's where I need some feedback from this group: (Especially from Wim &
Susan) I feel that I overreacted. I didn't put down the piano, per se, but I
emphasized all the negative things that could happen with a repair, such as
pinblock or plate cracking and failure to get the crack totally closed
(almost a given). I estimated 6 hours of repair work, which is far too high
(This is not a job I like to do) yet I want to try to repair my reputation
if there was anything I did wrong. The woman was more than gracious and
insisted on paying me for my time. But privately they may be questioning my
actions. My questions to the list are "Is there any recourse in dealing with
Baldwin (Probably not; I called Gibson and nothing was divulged about
pinblock problems)?; and what are some options for remedying the situation?
Should I eat some or all of the repair work? Offer a discount?
Jim
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